If Delta were to retain everything about Worldperks today, except for eliminating EUA and the complimentary upgrades to First Class, while at the same time essentially putting out a real FC product with real FC service, hot meals, the works, at high but doable prices and which is only available for purchase or the odd op-up exceptions, would you stay with WorldSkyperks?

How important are the FC upgrades for elites?
Are they the main or only reason for many to choose NW and later Delta?

Care to share your thoughts?
Please be up front about it.

Yes, yes, yes, and....yes.

The % I sit in FC on deeply discounted domestic tix, as well as the SWU program are really the hooks that hold me with NW today.

Same here!

Interesting you should bring this up. Obviously if NW/DL did this by themselves they would lose all their elites, if they did it in collusion with everyone else, they would be fine.

Speaking of collusion, last week I flew a couple segments of Intra European Business class on AF and AZ (CDG-FCO) in paid C. I was truly amazed at how pathetic both those carriers products were intra-europe. Yet, that is a market in which no one gets upfront for free. Thus, I do not believe eliminating free upgrades is a panacea.

In my opinion, the European carriers are not the great carriers and saviors that some people make them out to be. Heck, on my AF CDG-IAD segments last week I was the recipient of the most inattentive and lazy service I have ever had up front.

Well, for me it is not obvious that the FC upgrade is for everyone the only reason to choose NW, it will be interesting to continue to hear more people chime in.

I agree, the days of having a WBC recliner seat and a three course meal with wine & cognac on a 45 min AMS-LHR flight are behind us. On the other hand, there are a lot of announcements and new products of first and business class being introduced, particularly by the Asian carriers. As income inequality continues to grow there may be sufficient demand on the one hand for a small but real First Class that is paid for and on the other hand tons of tight, skinny seats for everyone else.

Europe hasn't had a decent business class product on AF and especially on KL for years now. However, they do make (very) good money by coupling "any flexibility whatsoever" = "higher fare" = "up front" rather than just giving it away to their elites. I am sure that this is one of the areas that the management of Delta would be looking at.

I know that for me the only reason I fly NW in the US for destinations where I have a choice and where it is offered is because of the FC upgrades that I get as a European elite member of Worldperks (sublet by NW to Flying Blue). On Delta there are essentially no upgrades for us. If that is also the future situation on the new Delta then there is going to be little to no reason for FB elites flying from Europe to the States to choose Delta...unless they come up with something else that is interesting...or they are still the best alternative out there after the dust settles.

I currently fly Northwest about every three weeks. If they did away with free unlimited upgrades I would fly every two or three months--and not Northwest.

Yes, I tend to fly NW as a result of FC upgrades as well as the best hubs in the domestic US. NW's coach product is not the best on the planet, but lets face it, none of them are very good even vaunted UA with E+ still is nothing at the end of the day to write home about (note not trying to run down UA am Prem Ex too). NW takes care of its elites via WP and this is a huge component. I'd venture to say that anyone with an alternative would be out the door if they were to remove it. Of course YMMV!! Many thanks for spurring an insightful conversation and debate!^ Safe travels Y'all!

I fly DTW-MSP-BIL every week, the price of a first class ticket had been about $1100 vs about $500 for coach, with that price differential I have been flying nothing but first. Two weeks ago the price jumped to about $1800 so I checked on coach and booked my next sixteen segments for about $450 per trip. Just finished my first cycle and as a PE was bumped on all four segments, so my product remained the same and NW lost $650 per ticket on me. Sometimes I just don't get it!

For me, I can fly just about anywhere on any airline -- at any price (well, not "any" but you get the idea ) Unless they don't fly there (i.e. I don't do LAX-MSP-DEN) or there is a really out of line price, I fly NW. They reward me for my loyalty by giving me a shot a bigger seat and more room. The more I fly in a year, the better my shot at that seat.

Take that away and I see no reason for loyalty to the airline. If all airlines got rid of it, I would fly strictly based on price and schedule.

Do you really think there is a market for a paid domestic first class? First off they would have to re-do the planes to have much smaller FC cabins. And that means one FA for maybe 8 pax which means basically adding another FA or reducing service in Y. I don't think it works except maybe on a couple routes.

And over the years I have seen many FC only airlines try and fly LA-NY -- how many are operating today?

When I was in the US during the month of January, there was no space on NW the dates I needed to do transcons, so I did one on DL and one on JetBlue. I thought I would dread being stuck in economy, but after flying (both flights full to the max) I think I would take the liveTV over FC pretty much any day of the week. Short of the few times I have taken an AA transcon in F on a 767 or 777, having TV to entertain me made these flights some of the best transcons I've ever done. This surprised me, given that I've gotten accustomed to some pretty nice planes in Asia for 4-6 hours flights, and had always thought the seat and space was king.
I really would hate to see EQM or RDM reductions for cheap economy flights or a ramping up of miles required for international flights or upgrades.

And next week you might sit in the back. Are the T&C for the two options the same? E.g., are both the F and Y tickets fully changeable? And while they "lost" $650 with you, they "made" $700 on somebody else who bought the $1800 ticket

In the OP's scenario, that F ticket would cost a lot more than $1100.

It has been tried a million times and the reality is that there just are not enough people who will actually pay a lot more for FC. I have noticed that on these boards the few who do actually pay anything other than lowest seem to think that is the best and most profitable model. It is not and never will be. The key is to strike a balance in using the FC cabin as marketing tool for loyalty (FC UG') and still having a few seats to sell at full price for the few who will shell it out. The FC cabin (loyalty) has more to do with how full Y is than it does anything else IMHO.

I guess what I am saying Mad Brewer is that there is a tipping point on the economic scale where I am willing to take the chance on sitting in back since both flights are about 1 1/2 hours. My other point was that they didn't sell that ticket because there were empty seats in first on both legs. I don't pretend to understand revenue management but it just seems that it is better to price things somewhere in the realistic range to attract a few weirdo's like me.

Upgrades are the almost the ONLY reason I fly NWA exclusively. The reason Is I fly a lot of domestic and don't actually go on vacations much. I have over 340K miles banked and not much planned to use them. I almost always get the upgrade (99% of the time). Delta was running about 50%. So I bailed on Delta and fly only NWA.

However, the ability to actually miles to buy tickets is another reason I switched. I was finding it almost impossible to find seats on Delta, for almost any destination, using the lowest miles options. I always had to pay double-miles, to cash in Delta miles. So, this is a close 2nd to upgrades.

Great point. I think the NW award inventory for a Plat is the best out there.